


free as a bird

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Episode: s02e07 The Writing on the Wall, Episode: s02e08 The Things We Bury, F/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Ward x Simmons Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 05:22:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6106246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma's always known she'd break Ward out eventually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	free as a bird

**Author's Note:**

> Written for wswinter's "supernatural" theme and for a very old prompt from shineyma: "It looks good on you."

Jemma’s curled up in the middle of the queen size bed (“a couple is a lot less conspicuous,” he said before letting her out of his sight to check them in and for some reason she believed him), arms wrapped around her legs and head half-hidden behind her knees like she’s an egg. The cheap motel doesn’t have a real bathroom and the sink is out in the open so she’s forced to watch while he cuts away the signs of his imprisonment. 

His clothes he left with the prisoner transport van. He’d changed right there on the side of the road, too eager to be out of the scrubs to wait for a bathroom or even the inside of the getaway car.

“If you wanna say something,” he says between strokes of the razor, “you might as well say it to me. You won’t have anyone else to say it to for a while.”

He meets her eyes in the mirror and he’s nearly unrecognizable. If she hadn’t known him before his time in the Vault, she wouldn’t know him now with the beard and most of his hair shaved off. Soon all that’s left as evidence of those months will be the scars.

“You’re a monster,” she says.

He pauses, frowning, and flicks the worst of the cream off the razor while he faces her. “I’m helping you.”

“You’ve been in that cell for eight months. If you really cared, you could’ve just told us where it was from the beginning.”

“Told who? Told Coulson? Told Skye while every word was being recorded?” He grabs his towel and wipes his face before taking the two steps to the bed. She curls her toes under her feet when he sits too close. “Did Coulson ever tell you what Hand said when he ordered me to pull it from the Fridge? She asked if he really thought that was wise, said she didn’t feel comfortable giving such a valuable asset the freedom to ‘walk away in the midst of a crisis.’”

She shakes her head, hiding further behind her knees. He sighs and rests a hand briefly on her hunched shoulder.

“SHIELD kept you prisoner, same as they did me; I’m the one who set you free, and someday you’re gonna see that.”

He goes back to shaving and she keeps her eyes fixed firmly on the faded comforter, refusing to look at him again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you think they know?” she asks a few hours later. They’re on the road again in their third stolen car - fourth if she counts the one she stole to pick him up in.

“That you’re with me?” he asks.

No, not precisely that. That she _freed_ him. He’s a wanted terrorist and she aided his escape from federal custody after telling Coulson that she needed some air. And he believed her because he trusted her. She is the worst sort of person.

Now, trapped with Ward and the guilt of what she’s unleashed him to do, she has only the small consolation that he likely would have escaped himself if she hadn’t come along. The feds had sent only a small team of agents and even if they were all chosen from the recently added ranks of former SHEILD operatives looking for work - which Jemma highly doubts given the government’s recent attitude - Ward was the best. He would have taken them out easily.

“Probably,” he says, taking a seemingly random exit off the highway. “That or they think you’ve been picked up by HYDRA, in which case you’re splitting their resources, so good job.” It sounds like an earnest compliment but it only makes Jemma feel worse.

She leans her head against the window and lets her eyes lose focus on the road’s edge. It’s kind of like flying, watching the world go small and blurry down below. After the Chitauri virus she wasn’t certain she’d ever feel comfortable flying again, but now she misses it. It’s an ache in her bones and if it’s not satisfied, she thinks she might die of heartbreak. Maybe not today or even this year, but one day, when she’s old enough that it’s not a tragedy but still young enough that she shouldn’t have died at all.

 

 

* * *

 

 

If they didn’t know before, they do now.

“Jemma?” Trip asks.

She’s seated on an otherwise unoccupied bench in the bus depot while Ward cleans out a locker he keeps here. She’s got a mostly empty duffel bag at her feet to make her look like any other traveler and a cheap novel from the dollar store down the block in her lap. The book’s not even worth the dollar but she seriously considers keeping her eyes fixed on it instead of reacting to her own name.

That consideration only lasts a moment, long enough to hear him say more softly, “Yeah, I’m looking right at her.”

She doesn’t know what she can say and lifting her eyes to meet Trip’s only makes it harder to find words. Apologies seem inadequate but … what else can she _do_?

She’s a traitor. The fact is written all over his face.

“I-” she begins but cuts off when a shadow falls over her.

“Hey, babe,” Ward says, bending over the back of the bench to wrap an arm around her and nuzzle her temple. Trip looks sick. “I got my stuff. Our bus is about to leave.”

Doesn’t he see Trip standing less than two meters away? Doesn’t he realize it’s over? Trip’s not alone - his earlier words were obviously directed over the comms - and even if he were, he has all the same training Ward does; he’ll at least be able to hold things to a draw until reinforcements arrive.

A flash of light in the corner of her vision answers her concerns. Ward’s left hand is fisted around a dead-man switch.

She turns her head up to face him. “There are children here.”

He chuckles and keeps the arm around her while he reaches past her for her bag. Both his and hers go over his shoulder and he tugs her up and into his side. They leave a motionless - and obviously very furious - Trip behind them.

“Personally,” Ward says into her ear, his head turned so she’s certain he’s looking back at Trip, “I think they’ll be more worried about you than the kids.”

She very sincerely doubts that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ward doesn’t need Jemma to tell him Bobbi’s on the first bus so she doesn’t bother telling him Hunter’s on the second. She wonders, at the bar, if he didn’t warn her who they were going to see as payback or if he simply didn’t realize it would bother her so much.

“-and you bring a most unexpected gift,” Bakshi says, his oily smile sliding from Ward to Jemma. She presses herself back in the uncomfortable wooden chair. It cages her within the circumference of its arms, but it’s a small price to pay for putting some distance between them.

“Simmons is with me,” Ward says. He picks her untouched drink off the table (a “bullet to the head” - _honestly_ ) and hands it blindly to her. She takes it and even takes a sip, hoping that it will calm her somewhat.

“Is she?” Bakshi asks, that fox-like smile still pinned on her. “Last we heard of Miss Simmons, she was stealing months' worth of classified data for SHIELD.”

That gets Ward to face her. His expression is some mix of confused and impressed that heartens her more than the alcohol. “Seriously? You raided HYDRA?”

“She was undercover.”

Ward barks out a laugh and falls back to facing front, his laughter fading into chuckles and ending with a great sigh. “Woo! That was good. Not much to laugh about in SHIELD lockup.” He cocks a thumb over his shoulder. “Her?”

Bakshi nods once.

“Damn. Coulson must really be desperate these days.”

“Speaking of SHIELD’s new director,” Bakshi says, “we are eager to learn all we can about him.” He turns his attention away from Jemma, but she has no misconceptions that he’s done with her. Ward may not care that she spied on HYDRA - although he might, he obviously didn’t know - but the rest of the organization won’t be so forgiving.

That said, Jemma’s less than broken up about it when Ward follows up his subsequent threat on Coulson by taking out the other men in the room.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ward makes her drink and drink and drink before they leave the bar. He plies her with expensive labels and glasses refilled before she’s half-done so that the memory of Bakshi’s accusing gaze fades and her shaking stops and she sleeps all the way to the night’s motel. It’s another queen mattress and when she wakes, head aching and mouth sticky, she’s not curled at the farthest edge of it.

“In my defense,” he says and he’s so close the words stir her hair, “I didn’t know how tactile you get when you’re drunk.”

She’s still dressed and they’re both on top of the blankets, so she wasn’t _too_ tactile, but she is wrapped up in his arms and there’s no way she can blame him for the leg she has slung over his hips. Tentatively, she lifts her head far enough to meet his eyes and immediately darts away, instinct driving her into the safety of the bathroom.

She’s shaking again and she’d love to blame it on Ward - if Bakshi’s a fox, then Ward’s a wolf - but she fears it’s not that way at all. She feels cold everywhere he touched and her fingers are tense like they spent the night curled tight in the front of his shirt.

“He’s a monster,” she says to the pale face in the mirror. “He’s forcing you to betray your friends and your morals in exchange for your own life.” But that’s not quite accurate, is it?

Coulson told her they’d never stop searching, even let her go undercover in HYDRA so she could hunt for answers there. After he decided to hand Ward over to the government, he tried to get her to go down and ask before it was too late, but she didn’t. She was always free to, given immediate access to Vault D so that she’d never have to second guess the impulse to confront him.

She didn’t though because she’d always known it would come to this, to her betraying everything. She should’ve gone to Coulson months ago, warned him that she wasn’t to be trusted.

She tears herself away from her reflection and starts the shower.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Should I be concerned?” she asks. She didn’t notice on her dash to the shower, but there is a disquieting collection of shovels, rope, and several containers of petrol on and around the dresser.

“They’re not for you,” Ward says.

“That’s not as comforting as you might suppose it is,” she says archly and begins digging through her bag for the meager toiletries they picked up several states ago. She washed her mouth out in the shower, but now it only tastes like stale beer and iffy pipes.

Ward is busy dressing in the suit he stole off Bakshi; it fits him surprisingly well and she half-forms a slightly hysterical theory that HYDRA recruits agents based on measurements to minimize wardrobe costs. Her weak chuckle is overshadowed by the ring of a cell phone.

They both look to the phone on the bed and then to each other in a way that’s almost comical.

He holds the loose ends of his tie towards her. She rolls her eyes and meets him at the bed to see to it while he answers. He smiles almost immediately. “Hey, _Skye_.”

Jemma’s fingers slip, completely undoing the knot and his hand closes loosely over them. It shouldn’t be soothing, but it is.

“She’s right here,” he says, meeting her eyes, “she’s trying to strangle me.”

She frowns disapprovingly at him. If she were trying to strangle him, she would be doing a better job and, to make her point, she finishes up the knot swiftly and tightens it until he’s lifting his chin and physically pushing her off.

 _Rude_ , he mouths. “Nah,” he says to Skye, “that’s not necessary. I like having her along for the ride; we haven’t had any quality time since that op in Belarus.”

Jemma wouldn’t call being locked in a cadaver drawer for an hour quality time. She sits on the edge of the bed, intending on dragging her forgotten bag into her lap to hunt down that toothpaste - or at least her comb - but gets distracted by the newspaper she half-sits on. Its cover story is about Ward - or about his brother vowing to bring him to justice. She suddenly has a terrible idea who the supplies are for.

“Coulson hasn’t filled you in, has he?” Ward asks. “On why Jemma’s following my lead?”

Whatever Skye says in answer has Ward shooting Jemma a smile.

“No, I don’t think I will. Enjoy the gift, you’ll be hearing from me again soon. Promise.” He hangs up and hovers at the edge of Jemma’s vision while he pulls on the suit jacket. “You gonna ask what she said?”

“No.”

He stares for a beat. “Fair. You okay to leave in ten?” And that’s the end of that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The baby at the next table starts wailing and Ward curses.

“It’s not his fault,” Jemma says, keeping her eyes on her plate instead of allowing herself to inadvertently shame the frazzled mother.

“No,” Ward grinds, “it’s hers.” He’s not talking about the mother. The corner booth is overflowing with teenagers and either one of the girls is very intoxicated or she’s … well, Jemma hopes she’s intoxicated. She should really be thrown out, the fuss and mess she’s making.

“Don’t,” Jemma warns.

Ward’s scowl fades, replaced by mocking hurt. “Simmons. Are you implying I would do something harmful to that poor girl?”

She meets his eyes steadily. “The trunk of our car is stocked with the stuff of serial killer fantasies.”

He mimics her posture, leaning across the table. It occurs to her that anyone looking is likely to think they’re playing some game, teasing each other as they gear up for a snog. Her mind, always far too quick for her own good, leaps back to waking up in bed with him. She felt safe in his arms.

“This,” he says, matching her low tone, “is a journey of personal growth and discovery.”

She rolls her eyes and he only smiles, insistent.

“I’m trying to figure out who I am without Garrett and you-” he considers her slowly- “you’re getting your wings back. Soon you’ll be free of SHIELD’s shackles.”

She sits up. “SHIELD never shackled me. They _protected_ me.”

Ward is slower to back away and she thinks he might only do so at all because their food arrives. “You really believe that? After what Hand said?”

“After what _you_ say Hand said,” she corrects, grabbing the syrup for her waffles before he can take it for his pancakes.

He frowns at her and busies himself with the butter. “So, hypothetical: if the uprising had never happened and life had just continued on, if you kept pushing on the GH formula and Fury took exception to it, what do you think would have happened?”

“I would have backed off.”

“Really? From a drug that can save countless lives?”

Her fingers go numb around the syrup handle and he snatches it from her hand.

“If you’d pressed,” he says while he makes swirls on his pancakes, “or maybe if you hadn’t, if you’d just refused to, say, erase someone’s memories - that’s a thing we know SHIELD was into-”

“Stop,” she says without much conviction.

“Do you really think, if you were the person Fury wanted on something, he would let you refuse? Coulson _begged_ to die and he was Fury’s golden boy. You think Fury would have been above threatening your life?”

She cuts at her waffle more viciously than she intends. “They were keeping it safe while I was in the field. It would have been irresponsible to take it aboard the Bus when damaging it has the potential to injure me.”

“They kept it safe in a prison. That doesn’t tell you something?”

She doesn’t respond. She’s not sure how to because she’s always thought it a little strange that SHIELD would insist on protecting it in their most secure facility when for years both she and it were considered perfectly safe in bases like the Cube and the Hub.

She sets her knife aside - more out of fear that she’ll follow through on the urge to stab him than fear for her waffles, which are not fairing well - and digs into the eggs instead. Soft, fluffy, not at all irksome.

“Is it weird that you eat eggs?” Ward asks.

She moves the knife to the edge of the table.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Here.” A sparkly cell phone lands in her lap, jolting her from her thoughts.

She sits up and buckles herself in now that Ward’s finally arrived - aren’t men supposed to be fast in the bathroom?

“This isn’t from some poor drifter you murdered, is it?” she asks, holding it between her thumb and forefinger.

“No. It’s from that bitch who made the baby cry.”

“Oh, good job then. What’s it for?”

“Texting someone I need to get in touch with.”

No sooner has he said it than a message pops up.

“‘On our way,’” Jemma reads. “‘Stay safe.’ This isn’t going to be like Bakshi, is it?”

He chuckles as he pulls them onto the road. “No. But now that that’s taken care of, you can use it to call Coulson.”

“What?” Her hands drop to her lap. She’s not going to call the team in for some revenge scheme of his. It’s one thing to take her own life in her hands by following him on this absurd trip, it’s another to expose the others to him.

“You don’t believe that one of SHIELD’s last high ranking, loyal agents would try to cage you like that. So call him. Ask. Hell, ask what he said after.”

“He ordered you to retrieve it and bring it back.” Coulson told her that himself.

“Uh huh. Ask him. Make it fast though, they only need a minute to get a trace.”

“I know the technology,” she mutters and keys in the number. It’s only after it starts ringing that she wonders if she shouldn’t be doing this. What are the odds Ward has her calling Coulson for any good reason?

“Who is this?” is Coulson’s gruff answer.

“Sir?” Jemma asks, feeling absurdly young at the sound of his voice. It’s the same way she felt whenever he’d come to visit while she was undercover, as though her father had arrived to make everything better.

“Jemma.” He sounds worried. Of course he sounds worried; Ward’s escaped and she’s gone with him. Her stomach twists. “Where are you? Did you escape?”

She shifts so she’s facing somewhat away from Ward. “No, I-”

“Simmons?”

“Tick tock,” Ward says softly.

“What did Agent Hand say?” she asks quickly. “When you ordered Ward to retrieve my skin?”

“Simmons,” Coulson says slowly, too slowly, “whatever he’s saying, you know he’s manipulating you.”

“What did she say?” Jemma holds her breath, waiting for the answer.

“She thought you’d run the second you had it back. But that’s why I sent Ward. I thought I could trust him to protect your interests, to bring it back for you.”

Relief sweeps through her. Of course that’s what Coulson wanted. She knew that. He’d never even consider trapping her like that.

“Sir,” she says, intending on telling him that she’s safe and unharmed, but Ward interrupts her.

“Time’s up,” he says and before she can think he’s thrown the phone out the window, leaving it in pieces on the highway. “Us,” he says once the window’s rolled back up.

“What about us?” she asks.

“When Coulson ordered me to bring your skin back from the Fridge, he told me exactly where it was, how it should be handled, and he said to ‘bring it back to _us_.’ Which I always thought was a little weird, since it’s _your_ skin.”

She crosses her arms and faces ahead. “I don’t believe you.” Even if Coulson did say that, it doesn’t mean he was planning on keeping it himself.

“No,” Ward agrees, “but you wonder.”

She hates that she does.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They got an early start and it’s a Friday, so weekend travelers aren’t quite on the road yet and their trip into the mountains is quick. If he’s planning on killing her and dumping her body, Ward’s certainly picked a prime spot. There’s no one around for miles.

But that’s not Ward’s style. If he was going to kill her, he’d want the others to know.

“Who owns this place?” she asks, craning her neck to see all of the massive house as they pull up in front.

“My parents.”

Oh, she is not liking this at all. “Ward…”

“Calm down,” he says like she’s overreacting. He throws the car in park without stopping the engine and hops out to come around to her side. She follows suit, figuring there’s nothing else to be done. He rests a hand against her lower back and points ahead. “You see that path there?” he asks.

She can’t very well have missed it; he pulled up right alongside the break in the trees.

“Take it about a half mile. The path’ll widen and curve. Wait for me there.”

She looks up at him. “What are you going to do?”

His smile sharpens. “Grow.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

She shouldn’t leave him, but if she’s tallying up shouldn’ts, she shouldn’t have come with him in the first place. Shouldn’t have helped him escape from federal custody. Shouldn’t have spent months resigning herself to helping him when she could have at least attempted asking for the information.

So she goes and she waits on a very uncomfortable rock and asks herself a thousand times what she thinks she’s doing here. Ward is not to be trusted, she knows this, and yet she’s thrown away everything on the hope that he’ll do the decent thing and give her back what is hers.

She doesn’t even know for certain that he has it. He could have turned it over to Garrett or HYDRA and been lying at Providence when he said he hid it on the way for fear he’d be walking into a trap.

She huffs. The only trap that would have been waiting for him would have been theirs if they’d found him out. In which case the plan actually would have been sound, now that she thinks of it. He could have used her as leverage.

But then he hasn’t. In all the months he’s been imprisoned, he’s never once tried.

She moans and buries her head in her hands.

“Oh, God.” The sound of someone else’s horrified moan startles her to her feet. Ward and his brother are approaching.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Ward says.

“Oh, she’s with you?” the senator asks. He looks her over from head to toe in a way that makes her squirm. “A little too posh for you, isn’t she?” Ward strikes him in the back of the head, sending him to his knees.

“Get to work.” Ward tosses one of the shovels down next to him.

“What’s going on?” Jemma asks while the senator sets to digging.

Ward leans on a nearby tree in that way specialists have of appearing casual when they’re really ready for a fight. “The only way to examine old wounds is to unearth them.”

It’s not much of an answer. “Was the real you always this cryptic or did you get it from Coulson?”

He laughs.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ward gives Jemma jerky when her stomach starts to rumble but offers his brother none. The senator takes exception to that and perhaps it’s a family trait to be unable to keep one’s tongue in check when not putting on a public face because the slight spurs him to speak for the first time in over an hour.

“So you know Coulson too?” he asks, wiping sweat from his brow.

“Dig,” Ward orders without much conviction.

The senator pulls a face but bends to it again. “Are you HYDRA too?” he asks between cutting into the earth and lifting the shovelful away.

“No,” Jemma says. Both Wards stop to stare. She might have said that a little too quickly.

“She’s SHIELD,” Ward says. “She’s just along for the ride.”

“Coulson sent you?” the senator asks. He shakes his head at the earth. “I knew he couldn’t be trusted.”

“No. She’s here for the same reason I am, so she can be set free.”

There he goes again. Jemma rolls her eyes and nearly misses the senator’s measuring look.

Ward returns to his tree. “You never told Skye you were on the Index, did you?”

Jemma wraps her arms around her knees. “You know I didn’t.”

“Fitz?”

She shakes her head.

“You might want to think about it. It might cure him of that pathetic crush.”

She’s put up with a lot of crap from him on this road trip, but she will _not_ let him talk about Fitz like that, not when he’s the one who broke him. “Don’t you- _ah!_ ” Her legs slip from her grasp and she follows them, bending double around a sudden pain in her side.

“Jemma?” Ward asks.

“I’m okay,” she says. It feels like someone’s punched her under her ribs but she’s fine.

Ward snatches the shovel from his brother. “Use your hands,” he orders.

The senator shakes his head. “There’s no way that’s the well. It’s too soft.”

“I know. Now dig it up.” He’s not looking at his brother when he smiles, he’s looking at _her_ and something in Jemma’s chest clenches in anticipation.

She creeps closer to the edge of the hole and watches as the senator unearths a heavy duffel bag. Ward takes it from him like he’s been handed a child and offers it to her without the slightest hesitation.

Jemma stumbles around the edge, her feet uneven as a hatchling’s on the freshly turned dirt. She falls to her knees with the bag, reaching for the zipper with shaking fingers while two of the people she’d least want to see this watch on. A fan of pure white feathers erupts up from the small opening and a sob jumps to Jemma’s throat. She laces her fingers through them like taking a lover’s hands.

“Thank you,” she says. She’s in Ward’s arms suddenly, hugging him and pulling him down so she can kiss his cheeks, his nose, his forehead. “Thank you thank you thank you.” It doesn’t matter that he hid it here when he could have brought it back to her or kept its location to himself all this time. She’s spent every day since the uprising pretending she could live without it; she can’t.

He laughs and catches her face between his hands to stop her. “You keep following the path, you’ll reach the lake. This time of year, you should have it all to yourself.”

She’s crying. She feels ridiculous for crying, but there it is. When he lets her go, she kisses him one more time on the cheek before grabbing the bag and taking off.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She doesn’t stop until she reaches the end of a dock. Once there’s no more dry land, she falls to her knees again to unpack the bag. The left wing comes first, then the curve of the long neck and the head, and soon a full swan’s skin is laying on the wooden planks. Jemma takes a brief moment to enjoy the sight of it after two long years, but a brief moment is all she can stand before she’s stripping off her clothes and pulling the skin on in their place.

Her bones shift and bend, her organs slip around one another - it should all be incredibly painful but, as always, it feels lovely to have her feathers back, like taking off her bra at the end of a long day. The fear she felt for so long after the Chitauri virus is entirely gone now that she has her own wings again and she takes off into the air.

Ward was right. She _is_ free. Wild and free and not at all human for the first time in years.

She flies the width and breadth of the lake, takes a tight spiral to the center, dips her wings in the water, dives straight in to fill her belly. She has the lake to herself as far as humans are concerned, but there’s plenty of wildlife. She spends much of the afternoon frightening a brace of ducks just for the joy of having her own shape again.

It’s the most fun she’s had since the days on the Bus and she revels in every second of it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The sun’s low in the sky and she’s drifting lazily across the surface of the water when an unnatural honking disturbs the quiet. It’s Ward, parked in yet another stolen vehicle on the opposite side of the lake. He climbs out, waving a shirt she thinks must be hers from the color and a quick sweep of the dock proves her clothes are in fact missing.

She wings across the lake to meet Ward on the beach.

“It looks good on you,” he says in a tone that might make her blush if she were human. He nods to the fork of a nearby tree. “I brought your clothes - unless you wanted to stay like that.”

She curls her neck so her beak is facing down and makes a slow circle of her head.

Ward rolls his eyes, but turns his back all the same. “I’ve seen you naked,” he gripes.

The truth is that she doesn’t mind that, she just doesn’t want him seeing her face when she emerges. Removing her skin, especially so soon after putting it on, leaves her raw. Her human skin is brand new, her nerves exposed. The air alone is cutting, but the stony embankment is like razors beneath her feet and her clothes feel like they’re sewn out of burrs.

He’s brought the bag as well and she lays her swan skin carefully inside, promising it will be far less time before she puts it on again.

“Okay,” she says once she’s ready to face him again. He must have known she was dressed long before she called him, but he shows no signs of annoyance.

“So, you comin’ with me? Or do you trust SHIELD anywhere near that?”

“I trust SHIELD,” she says calmly, “but I’ll take a ride back to civilization.”

He smiles and ushers her towards the waiting jeep. He doesn’t offer to take the bag from her and instead wraps his arm around her back to help her keep her feet on the incline. His hand, when it brushes her bare arm, sends a warm shiver through her and she’s again reminded of this morning.

He’s still a monster and she should still hate him, but with the afternoon fresh in her mind and her skin so close she can touch it, she’s much more forgiving and finds herself wishing he’d touch her again.

She catches sight of the smoke in the rearview before they get too deep in the trees and wonders only briefly if she shouldn’t have left him alone with his brother.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” she asks, working the zipper open just far enough that she can touch her feathers with the oversensitive tips of her fingers.

“I did. And you?”

The feathers are soft as ever and with the sun setting on the day and the smoke blowing away from them, it’s not just her human body that feels brand new. It feels like a fresh start, a new beginning after the last two years.

His hand is between them, working the clutch and she wraps the fingers of her free hand around his wrist. “Yes,” she says and doesn’t even mind his wolfish smile.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> In case it wasn't clear / you want a name to go with the weird, Jemma is a [swan maiden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_maiden), which is basically the bird version of a selkie.


End file.
